HSBC has reported a rise in half-year profit as the bank hailed a strong performance across its main divisions.
The banking giant said pre-tax profit rose five per cent to $10.2 billion (£7.8bn) in the first six months of the year, ahead of expectations.
Reported revenue came in at $26.2bn (£19.9bn), down 12 per cent.
The firm also announced a $2bn (£1.5bn) share buy-back as outgoing chairman Douglas Flint pointed to a multitude of factors behind the positive results.
“Markets-based revenues benefited from market share advances, commercial banking customer activity was robust, wealth management and insurance revenues were notably stronger in Hong Kong, and credit experience globally remained remarkably sound.
“As central bank interest rates edged higher, led by the US, we began to benefit from improved margins on our core deposit bases, providing a welcome enhancement to the group’s revenue mix, given the likely trajectory of interest rates over the medium term,” he said.
Flint and chief executive Stuart Gulliver have been attempting to reinvigorate the bank since the financial crisis, after which it has faced a series of misconduct issues.
Gulliver has overseen stringent job cuts and asset sales as part of efforts to boost profits.
Gulliver said: “We remain on track to achieve around $6bn of annualised cost savings by the end of the year, in line with the revised expectations that we set at our annual results.
“In the past 12 months we have paid more in dividends than any other European or American bank and returned $3.5bn to shareholders through share buy-backs.
“We have done this while strengthening one of the most resilient capital ratios in the industry,” he added.
HSBC is one of a number of banks considering relocating jobs to the continent as a result of the UK’s impending exit from the EU.
The bank has said 1,000 jobs may have to move from London to Paris over the next two years, depending on the outcome of negotiations.
Flint described Britain’s negotiations with Brussels as “complex and time-consuming”.
He said: “The essential questions that have to be addressed are whether, at the conclusion of negotiations, the economies of Europe will continue to have access to at least the same amount of financing capacity and related risk management services, and as readily available and similarly priced, as they have enjoyed with the UK as part of the EU.”
On Brexit, a bank spokesperson said: “Notwith-standing uncertainties arising from increasing geopolitical tensions and ambiguous predictions around the shape of transition to, and final form of, the UK’s future relationship with its major trading partners in the EU, customer activity across all business segments was resilient.”
HSBC also booked a $300 million (£228m) charge linked to the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI).
This comes in the wake of Lloyds and Barclays also revealing big hits in this area last week.
As HSBC’s London shares jumped three per cent in morning trading, Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “The market has reacted positively, mainly because it likes the smell of $2bn of cash heading back to investors from a share buyback scheme taking place in the second half of this year.“While it may be listed in the UK, HSBC is far from a UK operation. Three-quarters of its profits come from Asia, which shows which side of the world HSBC’s bread is buttered on.”
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